Through Your Eyes

by Ali Merci

  Suddenly, it didn’t seem enough that Hunter was here with her. He’d put her through hell—through seven levels of it over and over and over again. Him being here just wasn’t enough.

  And just like that, she felt rage start to bubble up in her veins. Because Hunter being here didn’t erase everything else he’d put her through.

  “Your father’s doing a noble job, you know,” Cole said, the smirk never leaving his face. “He’s saving lives. If he has to go and save one tonight, then let him. Don’t you already have enough blood staining your hands, Carmen?”

  The rage flew out through her fingertips, leaving her bloodstream and something much darker and bitter flowed through her instead. Carmen couldn’t name it, but it was turning her bones cold and cutting her chest open wide, leaving an empty, aching hole right there where her heart should’ve been. It was something that made flowers wilt and ripped the wings off butterflies and allowed frost to spread over souls.

  The instant those words left Cole’s mouth, Carmen felt like she was dying. Except that she was still breathing which was somehow worse.

  Someone else dropped something this time. Was it a fork? A spoon? A glass? It came from next to her. Perhaps it was Hunter. Maybe he dropped something. But Carmen was too still. Too frozen. She couldn’t make her muscles move. Couldn’t check for herself what and where the sound was.

  Maybe it was just the shattering of what was left of her heart. Or the exploding of what little sanity she had left. She didn’t know. She didn’t know. She didn’t know.

  She didn’t know anything but that her lungs were having trouble functioning and her heart was going to burst out of her ribcage in an excruciating manner. She didn’t know anything but the stabbing of a hundred needles behind her eyes.

  Her ears seemed to have tuned out, not registering anything that was happening. But nothing was happening. There indeed was an eerie silence that had fallen among everyone in that room and Carmen was conscious enough to acknowledge it was that fleeting sense of quiet and calm before the storm truly began. Before it hit them and created havoc and left them with nothing but the remnants of what was once been.

  But this was okay, she tried to reassure herself. This was okay. Because Carmen West had grown up with a storm raging inside her head the second she was born. It had created explosions in her head and burned down her hopes to ashes and tossed all her love to the wind—and she survived.

  She survived almost eighteen years. And she’d survive tonight.

  She wasn’t the kind of girl who ran away from the storm. She was Carmen goddamn West, the kind who had hurricanes named after her.

  “Cole.” Aunt Beatrix began slowly, her hands shaking as she withdrew them from the tabletop and hid them on her lap, away from calculating eyes. “Let’s just try to have a peaceful dinner—”

  Viola snorted, cutting through Beatrix’s voice obnoxiously and amplifying the tension in the air. “Peaceful,” she muttered sardonically. “Peaceful. You say that like this family is supposed to find peace with that—” Viola gestured with her hand in Carmen’s direction, not dignifying her with even a glance, “—that thing in this house. At our dinner table.”

  Carmen’s eyes flickered towards the clock. Only two and a half minutes had passed since her father stepped out of the house. She still had a long way to go.

  But it was okay. Because if she truly believed Asa was proof that morning came and took the nightmares with it, then Carmen perhaps should allow herself to believe that she was proof storms never lasted, and that the sky cleared once again for a brand new day.

  So she sat back in her chair and took the hits and the blows. She wouldn’t defend herself because every single word that flew out their mouths were hauntingly true, and there was nothing she could say to dispute them.

  But she would also never let them see her break.

  This would pass. Tonight would pass. She just needed to hold on for now.

  “I'm sorry,” a voice whispered from next to Carmen and she turned around to see Hunter, no longer laughing about the spilt wine but whose face had gone white and completely drained of blood. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry. I—”

  Carmen stared at him in confusion as the apologies kept tumbling out of his mouth uncontrollably, audible enough only to her ears as arguing ensued over the rest of the guests.

  Some of them were more than eager to rip Carmen to shreds; others just wanted the dinner to go by without any disturbance and were asking each other to shut up; and the rest just continued with their meals, blissfully ignorant.

  But Carmen drowned them all out. She got rid of the noise and focused on what mattered.

  “Hunter? Why are you apologising?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and clasped his hands together in an attempt to stop the trembling. “I was supposed to—I’m supposed to—I came here because—God, I’m so sorry.” He opened his eyes and tilted his head towards her, his blue eyes filled with so much anguish that it shot daggers right at Carmen’s heart. “I was supposed to be strong for you,” he admitted quietly. “But I can’t. Everything is so loud. And I... I don’t know.”

  And she understood. Carmen understood.

  Because while the others sat there, trying to pull at Carmen’s strings and unravel her, they were also breaking Hunter. After all, Sophia hadn’t only been Carmen's mother, had she?

  All of them were so buried deep with their hatred and disgust for Carmen that they didn’t see their words were killing one of their own.

  So she reached out and slipped her hand into his, squeezing gently. “I’m not your burden to carry, Hunter. You’re not supposed to be strong for me.” She blinked once, offering the tiniest of smiles. “But we can be strong for each other.”

  The tremble in his hands slowly subsided, and he squeezed back, wordlessly telling her that even if everything else went to shit and blew up in their faces tonight, they still had each other. She wouldn’t have lost all her family.

  “—was her fault!” Ethan Rutherford, Cole’s father, thundered as he glared at Aunt Bea. “Our dad must be shaking in his grave,” he spat. “Knowing you brought his daughter’s killer to sit with us at the ta—”

  “Shut up.”

  Hunter’s voice was low and could be easily drowned out by their uncle’s roaring, but it still rose above the noise with that subtle get demanding undertone that nobody but Hunter Donoghue could pull off.

  Carmen realised that, right now, maybe he needed to be that ruthless boy she’d seen walking down the school hallways. Maybe the only way he knew to fight back was to become the person he was fighting.

  “What?” Ethan Rutherford raised a brow.

  “I asked you—told—I told you to shut up,” Hunter said indifferently, his eyes on their older relative but his hand still in Carmen’s.

  “Don’t you speak to my dad that way,” Cole snarled.

  Hunter snorted. “Like I give two shits about what you want.”

  “Watch that mouth of yours, boy,” Viola said sharply, glaring at Hunter. “You speak to my son with respect!”

  “You always let your mother do your talking for you?” Hunter cocked his head, never breaking the stare-off with Cole.

  But that smirk on Cole’s face only turned sharper. “At least I have a mum, Hunter. You, on the other hand...” He let the words hang and even though Carmen saw no change in Hunter’s exterior, she felt his hand tighten around hers. “You lost both, didn’t you? Which person loses both their chances of having a mother, seriously? It’s like some horribly written joke. But maybe it’s just you. Maybe you tend to bring in a whole lot of bad karma just like how you dragged in that stray with you tonight.”

  “She’s not a stray!!” Hunter snarled, eyes flashing as he yanked his hand out of Carmen’s grasp and stood up from his seat, slamming both palms against the tabletop, the sheer force of the gesture sending a shockwave that rattled every little thing on the table.

  Carmen’s breathing faltered, begi
nning to feel the panic at how things could start spiralling out of control.

  “She is as much a part of this family as I am,” he continued, the tone of his voice more restrained, that flash of anger subdued for now. “Same blood that runs through her veins runs in mine. In yours. In anybody’s born into this family.”

  Viola gasped, as if hearing something inhumane spill out of Hunter’s mouth. “Same blood?” she spluttered, looking horrified. “Same what? Do not compare my son to that piece of filth. My boy is pure. Good. He doesn’t have tainted blood. He doesn’t have a rapist’s blood in his system!”

  Only seven minutes had passed. Her dad was still outside, still on the line with the hospital.

  But Carmen was feeling the life drain out of her now, and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep up the nonchalance.

  Tainted blood.

  Carmen’s skin felt heavy now, and there was bile rising up the back of her throat. What was that emotion which was currently burning through her? The feeling that made the hair on her skin rise and had her throat in a tight fist and made her stomach churn. What was that? Self-loathing? No.

  Disgust. It was disgust.

  Carmen no longer felt like she was home in the body that she came in. “Tainted”.

  She was going to be sick.

  It was loud sobbing that snapped Carmen out of her downward spiral within those milliseconds. Beatrix was crying.

  Carmen watched as the woman slouched back into her chair and covered her face with one hand, tears streaming down her face. Despite everything, Carmen felt her heart break yet again.

  Hunter had lost his mother and Carmen had lost hers, but Beatrix Rutherford had lost both her sisters, and she was now forced to watch the memory of one them being dragged through the mud and spit on.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Hunter gasped. He seemed to be having trouble catching his own breath after the curveball that Viola had thrown at him. That rough-around-the-edges, tougher-than-steel exterior of his was crumbling down, falling apart to nothing.

  There was only so much even he could take. He was no longer the ruthless boy who Carmen used to watch walk down the hallways but he also wasn’t the lost little kid who’d apologised just minutes ago for not being strong enough.

  He seemed to be something in between now, as if he was stuck floating between identities different halves of him wanted to claim.

  Still, Carmen said nothing. She wondered if that was the masochist in her, if it was that ugly, dark part of her rearing its head after being dormant for so long. That part of her she could never learn to love.

  “No, I suppose you’re right,” Cole drawled, eyes gleaming. “It wasn’t Carmen’s fault that dear little Aunt Sophia was raped, was it? No, that was all on her. I mean, that woman had a reputation, didn’t she? Wild cheerleader during her high school days and whatnot.”

  Nobody saw it coming, but Beatrix’s hand came crashing down against Cole’s cheek in an ear-splitting slap, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the large house and bouncing on everybody’s nerves.

  “Don’t… you… dare,” She bit out each word, her eyes red and cheeks stained with tears that kept flowing despite her rage. “She was my sister! My baby sist—” Her voice broke and she choked on her own words, the gut-wrenching sobs making it harder and harder for her to speak.

  Everything was swimming around Carmen.

  She was there, but she also wasn’t. She felt someone wrap their hands around her forearms and haul her out of her chair. and guide her away from all the chaos. She felt the floor beneath her feet, saw the walls and the framed paintings and the elegant chandeliers whizz past her as whoever was pulling her picked up their pace.

  And then she was out in the chilly night air, taking in huge gulps of breath. It was cold outside, but somehow it was also warmer than it was in there with all of them.

  “I’m never stepping foot in there ever again,” Hunter said in gasps, his hands leaving their hold around Carmen and clutching his knees for support as he bent over and clenched his jaw. “Never again.”

  Carmen was still saying nothing. What was there for her to say, really?

  Maybe she was still in shock. Nothing seemed to be working in her; her senses registered absolutely nothing.

  “What are you guys—” Carmen’s dad stopped short, pausing in his steps towards the house, when he saw the state both she and Hunter was in.

  His mouth parted as if to ask if something had happened, but the words didn’t come. Instead, realisation dawned over his face and then his eyes hardened.

  “Are you going to be okay on your own for a while longer?” he asked Carmen. “I need to go do something I should’ve done a long time ago.”

  The disappointment hit first, a huge wave of it, dragging down whatever remaining composure Carmen had left. And then came the anger.

  “Am I going to be okay on my own?” She let out a short, humourless laugh that took both Hunter and her dad by surprise. “I’ve been on my own for a while now. I didn’t have you in there with me, and I don’t need you now.”

  Hurt flashed through her father’s eyes but he didn’t say anything. He turned to Hunter instead.

  “Here.” He tossed the car keys towards Hunter. “Take her home, will you? I’m going to end this once and for all.” And with one last glance towards his daughter, he walked past them and back into the godforsaken house.

  Even her father didn’t get it. She didn’t want to be defended in a place where she knew she was never going to be accepted. She just wanted a warm pair of arms around her and a safe place to break down against. She didn’t want a father. She needed a dad.

  Twelve years after the tragedy, and he still couldn’t grasp that fact.

  “It wasn’t true,” Hunter murmured from next to her as they settled into the car, hesitating before awkwardly patting her shoulder in an attempt to be comforting. “Her death isn’t on you.”

  Carmen laughed. She didn’t know why, but she was laughing. She was laughing so hard that she even doubled over and clutched her stomach, ignoring the panicked look on Hunter’s face. And then somewhere in between, a laugh broke, splitting right in the middle and turned ugly, clawing at Carmen’s throat and ripping through her very existence as it turned into a sob.

  One soul-crushing sob after another fell past her lips, her shoulders shaking violently against the passenger seat as the universe she carried on her shoulders came crashing down with full force.

  “Hey, hey,” he mumbled softly, rubbing her arm gently, his voice thick and hoarse. “Those animals that hurt your mum, it’s on them, okay? Not you, Carmen. Never you.”

  Carmen wiped a hand under her eyes, but the tears didn’t stop, and she eventually gave up trying. “You say that like she died because of the rape, Hunter,” she told him in a small voice, her words wobbling with her soft cries. “It wasn’t that which killed her, was it?”

  Another sob escaped her, sounding like it came from deep within the hollow in her chest, where her heart was supposed to be.

  One of her hands flew to her mouth, as if covering it would stop the guttural cries that kept spilling out. “She survived the rape, Hunter.” She wept, her vision completely blurred as the tears came down in torrents. “She survived it; she had me. And then she went on to live for six more years. And you know what took her life?”

  Hunter didn’t respond, but he could no longer look Carmen in the eyes.

  “I did,” she breathed out, wishing it would just stop hurting so damn much. Everything hurt. Too much. “Six years of watching me smile and laugh and talk and walk and just existing—that's what killed her. Because every single time she looked at me, she had to relive the worst night of her life over and over again. Until it became too much.”

  “Carmen.” Hunter struggled for words. “Carmen, please stop. Don’t.”

  “I was a reminder of her life being ruined.” She sniffed, wrapping her hands around herself as the sobs subsided and the cries grew sile
nt. “And she couldn’t kill me for it, so she just killed herself.”

  Carmen West may have a thunderstorm in her eyes and a touch of galaxies in her veins, but she was also a human. And unlike raindrops and stars, humans weren’t beautiful to look at when they fell.

  And right now, Carmen West was falling.

  51.

  Achilles’ Heel

  Carmen’s eyes seemed to have finally run dry, the tracks of her tears on her cheeks still pretty much apparent as she tucked her feet under her and nestled further into the couch.

  “You should probably eat something,” Hunter said, stuffing his hands into his pockets and looking around the house he hadn’t stepped foot in for almost twelve years. “You didn’t have much back there.”

  Carmen sniffed, running a hand under her eyes to get rid of any wetness remaining there.

  “Not hungry,” she muttered, her voice so hoarse it made her tone sound more clipped than she intended.

  “Water, at least?” he offered cautiously, still not sitting down as he observed her. “Your—”

  “Don’t want anything.” There was that part of Carmen emerging again, the part she loathed. The part that shut down on everyone and pushed people away when she was in agony.

  And right now, she was in agony. So much so that it was almost unbearable. She wanted to hug herself so tight in hopes that it would somehow glue back all her shattered pieces.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  How was it that emotional pain impacted her physically, anyway? How did it manage to suffocate her?

  Everything hurt: blinking hurt. Speaking hurt. Existing hurt.

  And she didn’t know what to do with all that pain filling up every little crack and dent in her heart.

  “So that’s what you’re planning on doing?” Hunter asked, raising a brow as he stood behind the couch opposite her, folding his arms on the headrest. “Giving the silent treatment? Starving yourself? Refusing to even drink anything?”

  Carmen’s eyes flashed with warning once they met Hunter’s ones. “Don’t push me.”